


Warmth & Light

by Oilan



Series: Ghost AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Ghosts, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 08:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12602524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oilan/pseuds/Oilan
Summary: After the barricades of 1832, Courfeyrac and his friends remained behind.





	Warmth & Light

 At one point Courfeyrac might have thought that after sixteen years, one could get used to anything. Not feeling the warmth of the sun, nor the summer rain as it passed through him. Watching old friends and lovers grow and change and live out their lives as he remained, always the same. The world around him dull, drained of all color as people passed by him in the street, unseeing. As soon as he thought he was accustomed to any one form of loss, something else would crop up, and catch him off-guard. 

Neither could he get used to the marks 1832 had left upon their little group—the single bayonet wound on Bahorel’s side, the three ghastly ones on Combeferre’s chest, the eight bullet holes Enjolras bore, none of which had touched his face, as though the National Guard could not have borne to mar it.

Even looking down at himself would occasionally shock him. One bullet wound that had felled him, and one that had finished him off. Death was unforgiving; he could not change his appearance. How cruel it was that he had died covered in sweat and gunpowder, coat off, hat lost, hair a mess! It was just as well the living could not see him—most of the time. 

It had taken quite a while for Courfeyrac to appear when he chose—the first time had been inadvertent, and a disaster. It had been in the Corinthe. For the first time, _afterwards_ , he had mustered enough strength to return to the wineshop, though he had passed through the door well after closing time. Out of sheer habit, Courfeyrac had walked upstairs, sat at his favorite table, looking around with both warmth and sadness. Perhaps it was the odd comfort at being in so familiar and beloved a location, or the longing for something he could never have back, but something happened then. He had turned his head to see Gibelotte having just entered, carrying a tray of freshly cleaned dishes, frozen on the last step. She was looking right at him—she could see him! Courfeyrac had smiled. Gibelotte had dropped the dishes and screamed. 

Not everything was grim, however. There seemed to be many spirits left over from previous revolutions, previous rebellions, and they did in death what they did in life. They had formed societies of sorts, speaking to each other, keeping up with the news of the living counterparts they had left behind. Sometimes Courfeyrac and his friends would still have nights out, slipping into the theater to see the latest opera or setting up shop in the corner of a café, or even visiting the graveyard to frighten youngsters who had sneaked inside after dark. Courfeyrac could sometimes forget he had died at all.

“But why is it that _we_ are all still here?” Joly asked one night as he hovered over a forgotten bottle of wine. The nine of them were gathered in the empty backroom of the Musain, as if drawn there. The room, almost as lively as it had once been, grew quiet at this query. It was true; not everyone remained after death. Mère Hucheloup a few years after 1832, Marius’ old book-loving friend, even little Gavroche—none were still here. “There must be a reason.”

Enjolras, as austere in death as he was in life, still surprised them all when he answered, though any one of them could have sworn he had not been listening. “I have heard spirits linger on earth due to some sort of unfinished business. Perhaps that is why we remain.”

The room grew rather somber. After that, it was difficult to forget.

 

* * *

 

Some things, for better or worse, would always stay the same. History often repeated itself. In 1848, the barricades arose once more.

“Has it already been sixteen years?” Combeferre said as all nine of them huddled in a narrow street, watching the living run past, calling out instructions and encouragements to each other, building, singing. “Time passes in such fits and starts.”

“What shall we do, then?” Bahorel was grinning, and if by instinct they all turned to Enjolras for instruction. “How I long to be out there where we belong again!”

Enjolras smiled. “We will do all we can.”

What they _could_ do was not much. They hid supplies, sabotaged firearms, fanned flames. Feuilly had the idea of distracting the municipal guards with gusts of icy cold wind—a particular speciality of spirits. Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire even managed to cause several canons to malfunction beyond repair.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Bossuet said, rattling the windows of a shop loudly enough to frighten off a nearby group of guardsmen. “I’m so used to fighting in the summertime. You don’t need a coat for that. For once we have an advantage, being dead!”

The fighting grew in fervor over the days until, at last, blessed news reached them—Louis-Phillipe had fled to England. France no longer had a king. Courfeyrac and his friends grouped themselves outside the Hôtel de Ville, and waited.

“This certainly brings back memories,” Courfeyrac said in an aside to Enjolras. “If this all finishes like 1830, I don’t know what I’ll do. Haunt whoever is responsible until they join me in the grave, I expect.”

“Even if the outcome is not what we hoped, we have all the time in the world to try again,” said Enjolras, only half wry.

All the time in the world did not render one patient. The group hovered at the very back of the crowd, some pacing, others shifting with nervous energy. The days passed as the last sixteen years had: In both a lifetime and a heartbeat. But one day, the group was shaken from their reverie by a noise.

Courfeyrac raised his head to look out over the crowd. Their fellow republicans were cheering—tentatively at first, but they soon grew louder, more confident, more joyful.

“Could it really be true?” Jean Prouvaire said, breathless with excitement, grasping Feuilly’s arm. “Another Republic?”

"It's true," said Feuilly, looking out over the people as though he could scarcely believe it. "At last!"

“May it never fail," said Combeferre, barely audible.

“If it does, we must trust the People to set it right again,” Enjolras said. Before Courfeyrac’s eyes, his form seemed to growing fainter. “We’ve done all we can.”

Courfeyrac looked from Enjolras and out into the crowd gathered in the shadow of the Hôtel de Ville. Something was happening, the view changing as he watched. The sea of banners, of tricolor cockades, of red sashes—all were shifting, transforming. Previously grey, the color was flooding back to them—color Courfeyrac had not seen in sixteen years.  

Around him, his friends must have been seeing the same thing. All were smiling even as they faded from his vision, even as _he_ faded along with them. In the sky above them, the winter sun was shining down, bright and clear and beautiful, and Courfeyrac could feel it upon him when at last they were engulfed in warmth and light.


End file.
